Becoming Richard Pryor (80 page)

238   
a young black man in the pincers of the law:
“I Spy Cops” and “Lineup,” ‘
Craps
.’ Over the past seven years, Pryor had spent time in jail in Pittsburgh, at the San Diego border, and in Los Angeles as a result of the assault at the Sunset Towers West—all of which he may have drawn upon in these routines.

239   
“We used to think” . . . “Blacks are the same”:
Michael Sherman, “Pryor Appearing at Club,”
Los Angeles Times
, Jan. 1, 1971, p. H12.

240   
Being married is hard:
“F**k from Memory,”
‘Craps.’

240   
Richard’s vision of sex:
“Gettin’ Some,” “Gettin’ High,” and “Big Tits,”
‘Craps’
.

241   
“I was the only dude in the neighborhood”:
“F**king the Faggot,”
‘Craps’
.

241   
living in the Sunset Tower:
Contract between Richard Pryor and ALA Enterprises, Inc., Dec. 7, 1970.

241   
John Wayne . . . best-kept prostitutes:
Laurie Ochoa, “Tawdry Tales of the Sunset Tower,”
Los Angeles Times
, June 19, 1988, p. L98. According to Mötley Crüe bassist Nikki Sixx, Pryor carried on a highly charged relationship with Sixx’s mother, who also lived in the Tower at the time (“Dear Superstar: Nikki Sixx,”
Blender
, Sept. 2007).

242   
episode of
The Partridge Family
:
“Soul Club,”
The Partridge Family
, aired Jan. 29, 1971.

243   
Around forty-two seconds after 6:00 a.m.:
“Death Toll 33 in Massive Earthquake,”
Los Angeles Times
, Feb. 10, 1971, p. B1;
“the valley of the damned,”
“knew God or something”:
The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
, aired Jan. 12, 1971 (NBC).

243   
The Sylmar Earthquake:
Special San Fernando Earthquake edition,
California Geology
24 (April/May 1971): 4–5.

243   
“It was as if”:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 113–14.

244   
shaggy-browed:
Alan Farley, “Divided We Stand: A Sketch of the History of the Disunity of Broadcasters in the Face of Threats to the First Amendment,”
KPFA Folio
22, no. 4 (Apr. 1971): 5;
math degree . . . chairman:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007;
production assistant:
KPFA Folio
22, no. 2 (Feb. 1971): 1;
Gaslight:
New York
, Feb. 22, 1971, p. 15;
Basin Street West:
Alan Farley, “Media Monitor,”
KPFA Folio
(Mar. 1971): 8, 46. In his memoir, Pryor remembers driving up to Berkeley with Paul Mooney. While it is probably true that Mooney and Pryor did drive up to Berkeley together at some point, Farley’s recollection fits better with the timeline set by the earthquake, Pryor’s performances at Basin Street West, and the beginnings of Farley’s recordings of Pryor (pp. 113–14).

Chapter 14: I’m a Serious Mother

245   
“learn to live”:
“Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 12;
“an apple a day”:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007;
“to cast off everything”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 115.

245   
Starting in the fall of 1967:
W. J. Rorabaugh,
Berkeley at War: The 1960s
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1989), pp. 145–66.

246   
“crackling with information”:
Author’s interview with Ishmael Reed, Feb. 20, 2007.

246   
By 1971, the left in Berkeley:
Rorabaugh,
Berkeley at War
, pp. 155–66;
three hundred demonstrators:
em, “People Return FBI Call,”
Berkeley Barb
, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 5; “Turnabout’s Fair Play,”
Good Times
, Feb. 12, 1971, pp. 14–15.

246   
more than three thousand:
“Stone Cold Revolutionaries,”
Good Times
, Feb. 12, 1971, p. 2;
“Smash the State!”:
“Women Lead Action,”
Berkeley Barb
, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 5;
clobbered a policeman:
Wittol, “They Bleed Too . . . ,”
Berkeley Barb
, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 3.

247   
“a schizophrenic with multiple personalities”:
C.D., “Chaos Over Laos,”
Berkeley Barb
, Feb. 12–18, 1971, p. 3;
A young woman composed a poem:
em, “Stone Cold Revolutionaries.”

248   
a survey of electoral preferences:
The Sellerses (Nancy Sellers and Charles Sellers), “Black Berkeley: Shifting Left?,”
Berkeley Monitor
, Dec. 3, 1971, p. 8;
a separate police department for black Berkeley:
David Mundstock, “Berkeley in the 70s: A History of Progressive Electoral Politics,” http://www.berkeleyinthe70s.homestead.com.

248   
played out this chemistry:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley, Feb. 13, 2007;
a fledgling social critic:
Farley, “Divided We Stand,” pp. 4–5, 47; Farley, “Media Monitor,”
KPFA Folio
(Feb. 1971): 7, 43;
Richard was free speech incarnate:
Farley, “Media Monitor,”
KPFA Folio
(Mar. 1971): 8, 46.

249   
The
Examiner
’s Phil Elwood:
Joel Selvin, “Phil Elwood, 1926–2006: Beloved Bay Area Jazz and Blues Critic,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, Jan. 11, 2006; Alan Farley, “Vignettes Amidst the Pimps,”
San Francisco Examiner
, May 16, 1971, p. 5.

249   
“unfunny and not original”:
Cecil Brown, “Remembering Richard Pryor: A True Friend and Comic Genius,”
AOL Black Voices,
Dec. 12, 2005;
“a major figure”:
Philip Elwood, “Comic Pryor Is Young, Black and Outrageous,”
San Francisco Examiner
, Feb. 20, 1971, p. 8.

249   
“endless creativity”:
Alan Farley, “Media Monitor,”
KPFA Folio
, Mar. 1971, p. 46.

249   
“master of a hundred voices”:
Grover Sales, “Stage & Screen,”
San Francisco
, Jan. 1971, p. 40; Grover Sales, “Stage & Screen,”
San Francisco
, Apr. 1971, p. 56;
“nervous, light-brown ferret”:
Grover Sales, “Stage & Screen,”
San Francisco
, July 1971, p. 42.

250   
approached by a producer:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley;
The Great American Dream Machine
:
John J. O’Connor, “Who’s Inside the ‘Dream Machine,’”
New York Times
, Apr. 11, 1971, p. D21;
Pioneers of THIRTEEN—The ’70s: Bold and Fearless
(THIRTEEN/WNET, 2013);
Writing on spec for the show:
Richard Pryor with Alan Farley, “Uncle Sam Wants You Dead, Nigger,”
The Realist
90 (May–June 1971): 39–41.

250   
Richard’s screenplay tracked the life of Johnny:
Ibid., pp. 39–41.

251   
Richard’s most straightforward political statement:
“Uncle Sam Wants You Dead, Nigger,” recorded June 16, 1971, Museum of Performance and Design, Performing Arts Library, San Francisco, CA.

251   
The Great American Dream Machine
rejected the script:
Farley, “Uncle Sam Wants You Dead, Nigger,” p. 39;
At Alan
Farley’s suggestion:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley. The producers of
The Great American Dream Machine
did not lack political courage: the same year they rejected Richard’s script, they battled against the FBI to air an investigation of its undercover agents, one that alleged that “some of the violence blamed on the New Left movement was actually the work of police and F.B.I. undercover agents” (O’Connor, “TV: Report on F.B.I. Raises Questions,” p. 63).

252   
underground magazine that had just published:
“Disneyland Memorial Orgy,”
The Realist
, April/May 1967, pp. 12–13.

252   
Richard was approached by Improv regular:
Author’s interview with Michael Blum, Feb. 20, 2007.

252   
In Blum’s film:
Live and Smokin’
;
describes how the white johns:
“Whorehouse, Part I,”
Evolution/Revolution
.

253   
“Remember the old days” . . . “this ain’t shit!”:
Author’s interview with Ralph Camilli, June 7, 2011.

253   
“I hate to see folks leave”:
Live and Smokin’
.

253   
caught in another jam:
Author’s interview with Alan Farley; Charles Burress, “Mary Moore—Founder of Berkeley Nightclub Mandrake’s,”
San Francisco Chronicle
, Dec. 28, 2001; Ed Ward, liner notes to
Joy of Cooking
(Capitol/Evangeline Records, 2003 [1971]).

254   
Pied Piper:
E-mail communication with Ed Ward, Feb. 27, 2007.

254   
Moore called to the stage . . . “Louie, Louie”:
Cecil Brown, “Running Buddy,” in Benj Demott, ed.,
First of the Year: 2008
(New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2008), p. 204.

254   
“A slim shadow” . . . “under the spell” . . . “I was one of the only”:
Ibid., pp. 204–7.

254   
After the show, Brown followed Richard:
Ibid., pp. 206–7.

255   
“a nightmare”:
Christopher Lehmann, “If You’re Black, Get Back, and Jive to Survive,”
New York Times
, Jan. 14, 1970, p. 45;
protagonist, George Washington:
Cecil Brown,
The Life and Loves of Mr. Jiveass Nigger
(New York: Ecco Press, 1991 [1969]), pp. 206, 212;
“flimflamboyantly erotic”:
Lehmann, “If You’re Black, Get Back,” p. 45;
fielding raves:
Richard Rhodes, “Does Everybody Lie? Yes, Says George Washington,”
New York Times
, Feb. 1, 1970, p. BR3; Ardie Ivie, “The Uncle Remus Reality Updated,” Mar. 8, 1970, p. N47;
The Tonight Show
:
Chicago Tribune
, Mar. 6, 1970, p. B19;
screen rights:
A. H. Weiler, “A-Jive in Denmark,”
New York Times
, Feb. 22, 1970, p. D15;
hosted the sort of parties:
Author’s interview with Ishmael Reed.

255   
“He had never been around”:
Author’s interview with Joan Thornell, Feb. 28, 2007;
“uncompromisingly black”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 117.

256   
“was not on the curriculums”:
Author’s interview with Ishmael Reed;
“Hey, motherfucker”:
“John Williams interview with Claude Brown,” recorded July 29, 1983, Box 171, John A. Williams Papers, University of Rochester.

256   
“Perhaps the most soulful word”:
Claude Brown, “The Language of Soul,”
Esquire
vol. 69, Apr. 1968, p. 88; Ishmael Reed, ed., “Introduction,”
19 Necromancers from Now: An Anthology of Original American Writing for the 1970s
(Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1970), p. xv.

256   
“I don’t think I have a style yet”:
“Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 14;
“I’m a serious mother”:
“John Williams interview with Claude Brown.”

257   
“Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman”:
“Prelude,”
Evolution/Revolution
.

257   
$110-a-month rental . . . “the soundtrack for my life”:
Pryor Convictions
, pp. 115–16;
a dingy clapboard rooming house:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 17, 2011.

257   
“like drinking out of two cups”:
“Congress of Wonders interview”;
“I’m using the money”:
“Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 13;
“freest time of my life”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 114.

257   
“very high on cocaine and whiskey”:
“‘The Assassin’ and Other Musings, 6/13/1971,” transcript in author’s possession.

258   
“Back up on myself”:
“Stream of Consciousness,”
A Snapshot of Richard Pryor
, produced by Alan Farley, KALW, Feb. 13, 2003 (recording in author’s possession).

258   
wild fable of black payback:
Sweet
Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song
, directed by Melvin Van Peebles (Cinemation, 1971).

259   
crisp takedown:
Lerone Bennett Jr., “The Emancipation Orgasm: Sweetback in Wonderland,”
Ebony
, Sept. 1971, p. 118; J. Hoberman,
The Dream Life: Movies, Media, and the Mythology of the Sixties
(New York: The New Press, 2005), pp. 299–304.

259   
“That was as exciting to me”:
“Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 12.

259   
a day in the life of a black guerrilla:
“‘The Assassin’ and Other Musings, 6/13/1971.”

260   
The screenplay begins:
Felton, “This Can’t Be Happening to Me,” p. 44.

261   
screenplay’s final scene:
Ibid., p. 69.

261   
he kept his cocaine close:
“John Williams Interview with Claude Brown”;
“like a deranged wizard”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 116;
on Telegraph Avenue:
Author’s interview with Joan Thornell.

262   
“You know how Dracula”:
“Talking to the Secret Primps,” p. 12. In another interview, when a white comedian compared his “straight, middle-class college scene” to Richard’s “ghetto scene,” Richard took offense, snapping “my scene isn’t no fucking ghetto scene” (“Congress of Wonders interview”).

262   
Then the routine would hang:
Live and Smokin’
.

264   
“I repeated a single word”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 116.

265   
On the morning of September 9, 1971:
Tom Wicker,
A Time to Die
(New York, Quadrangle, 1975), pp. 9–18, 286–92, 315–16;
one shower . . . one roll of toilet paper:
Transcript of New York State Special Commission on Attica
, Hearings of Apr. 12, 1972, pp. 83, 87;
“orgy of brutality”:
David W. Chen, “Judge Approves $8 Million Deal for Victims of Attica Torture,”
New York Times
, Feb. 16, 2000, p. B6.

265   
packed his few possessions”:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011.

266   
where he went to meet his drug connection:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Mar. 7, 2013;
“talked to a black man”:
Author’s interview with Patricia Heitman, Sept. 11, 2011;
“What the fuck are you doing?”:
Pryor Convictions
, p. 119;.